"Five Poems On Psalm 1" by Christopher Raley

I. You have said the righteous is like a tree planted in a garden by a river. Your river runs its course from spring to ocean carving its slow and deep mark in the earth;

rushing its way through the wild lands, stone gorges and meadows painfully green; looping back and forth the valley like a string in frozen fall to the mouth of the sea.

Where the river is most deep and slow channels divert to water Your trees and surround them as far as they might grow.

They grow tall from Your care and their roots entangle for theirs is not to journey. But the world passes by scoffing under their shade